Kingston Debuts 256GB USB Flash Drive

Kingston has released the world's biggest - in terms of storage capacity - USB flash drive with 256GB worth of space; the DataTraveler 300 is apparently already available for sale in the UK.

The DataTraveler 300 has the capacity of 54 DVDs or 365 CD and will allow punters to flog their files and documents. The device comes with an application called "Password Traveler" which will password protect any files on the storage device.

Kingston has judiciously chosen to remove the easily lost cap and replaced it with a sleek design that retracts the USB connector when not in use. The DataTraveler 300 is compatible with Windows Readyboost (although Windows 7 will unlikely feel the need for it).

It is backed by a five-year warranty and 24/7 tech support. Unfortunately, it is built to order and customers who will want to purchase will need to do so through a reseller or an e-tailer. The price? A cool £664.66 including VAT, that's a cool £2.60 per GB, roughly twice the ongoing market rate.

Unfortunately, the device does not come with USB 3.0 or even an e-Sata connector (THAT would have been great). Instead, the data transfer rates are limited to 20MBps (write) and 10MBps (read) which in theory means that copying to and then from the device will take more than 10 hours.

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Our Comments

We failed to successfully purchase one though and to make things worse, we did order one gorgeous-looking Data Traveler Kingston DT101 which was supposed to be a 256GB model but ended up being a fake model with 256MB instead. Expect a 512GB, then a 1TB USB Key to come out by the end of the year.